manity, which is the chief glory of the great brotherhood, and which is verily the element in its constitution that secures its success, and must ensure its perpetuity.

It is not that the few loud-mouthed opponents of Masonry in their hearts believe Christianity and Freemasonry to be irreconcilable, that they have come at length to declare so; but rather having stultified themselves by other modes of attack on societies called Secret, they reiterate that mode of attack, namely, the incompatibility of the practice of Freemasonry with Christianity. They do this in order to unsettle the great body of sincere Christians who are Masons, to attract the attention of the community with a charge of irreligion, and generally to raise a sensation. Upon the heel of a good deal of frivolity, illogical deduction, and with garbled quotations from Masonic books. this charge of war upon the gospel of Christ is the burden of a column and a half in a recent number of the New York Independent, under the caption at the head of this article. It appears that a church in Wheaton, Illinois, with but one negative vote, passed the following resolve:

"Being fully persuaded that secret oath-bound associations are in their nature at war with the Gospel of Christ, therefore, hereafter, as heretofore, Freemasons desiring to unite with this church are expected and required to abstain totally from the practice of Freemasonry; and the principle of this testimony is to be applied to other similiar organizations."

It also appears that a difference of opinion about this vote, has taken place between the Independent and the writer of the article quoted, the precise nature of which is not clear. It is probable that the Independent had the good sense to see that so stringent a vote as this, would break up the church. But the Rev. Dr. Blanchard explains, letting the cat out of the bag, and admitting the real truth, which was more than he meant to do, when he proceeds to say in answer to the Independent, that they-the church at Wheaton-dont want to exclude Freemasons from fellowship because they are Freemasons, "but that because being Freemasons, the brethren will adhere to the Lodge for christian labor and instruction, grieving their church brethren with their Masonic meat." Verily our Masonic brethren in Wheaton ought not to have tried "grieviously" to make their church brethren Masons; but adhering to their Lodge for christian labor and instruction,-both of which they do find opportunities for in a Masonic Lodge, is not so bad. We sympathize with the Rev. Doctor for any want of christian quickening in labor or instruction in his church at Wheaton, and we readily pardon his jealousy

of the Lodge on account of it; but really it is hard upon our Masonic Brethren who are church members, to deny them the practice of the christian virtues wherever they can find the opportunity.

We spoke of the ignorance of wordly wisdom among certain clergymen. This is shown in their not appreciating mankind's love of association, fondness for society and love of united action. There are innumerable ties binding bodies of men together in all communities, beside the church fellowship tie, but we can put our fingers on ministers who think there ought to be none other. The whole Romish church think so, and consequently have made especial blundering against Masonry from the beginning. The Masonic society tie is ancient; it has made quite a figure in the world; it has conferred much practical benefit on the human race, and it still hopes to confer a great amount of good. Perhaps its ties, symbols, and what not, have a peculiar charm, yet it is after all only a great society, differing in kind and degree from others among men, but it has no secret purposes, and is never united politically or otherwise against its fellow-men outside the Order. The philanthropic design, the christian aim of Masonry, all its objects are open and avowed, and the great society from time immemorial has never been found otherwise than in strict accordance with its principles. Masons and Freemasonry are never hidden. Who the brethren are and what the institution represents, are frequently shown to the public. But we are not about to enter upon a defence of the Order against carping criticism, or to discover that it is not at war with the gospel of Christ; neither is it necessary to amplify upon the causes why the lessons taught in the Lodge-room, and its associations, are so often more inviting to earnest Christians than some church fellowships. We certainly take no satisfaction that the fact is so, as in the case at Wheaton, Illinois, but there is no other remedy for such a state of things, than for the brethren of the church to make their fellowships as live and active in the cause of Christ, as it is in the Freemason's Lodge.

We have patiently read the Rev. Dr. Blanchard's attack, in order to find-what should be rather an essential statement of such an attack-namely, wherein Masonry is hostile to Christianity. Now there is nothing to this point in the whole article, but much re-statement of old phraseology against "Secret Societies" in general, and the sore spot in the Doctor's Church at Wheaton. We don't see but Masonry is answerable for something here, and our good brethren there must see to it, that their "Masonic meat" is courteously proffered, and never unseasonably.-Freemasons' Monthly Magazine.

INFLUENCE OF SUNLIGHT.

It is a well known fact, and one apparent in every sick-room, that many diseases are aggravated when night approaches. It has very often been observed, but, by the materialism of modern science, referred summarily to imagination. The silence of the night gave free reign to fancy, they said, and small aches became almost unbearable. But the fact is, that the sunlight is magnetic and invigorating, and its subtle influence is felt on the finer tissues of our organizations, as well as those of plants. ; and, during its absence, our vitality is, of course, at a lower ebb, and we can bear disease and its tortures with less fortitude and patience. If you would see the influence of sunlight as compared with its absence, notice the rosy, ruddy cheeks of the country children as compared with the pale and bloodless faces that look at us from the windows of the pent-up houses in our city streets, especially in those long rows of brick buildings facing to the north. How can people live if debarred of the sunlight? The fish of the Mammoth Cave are white; their eyes are not opened, because they have never felt the glorious light; they are weak and imperfecta kind of idiots, if fish are liable to that wretchedness.

THE MASONRY OF GOD.

The Ancient Masonic writers had a peculiar delight in tracing Masonry to the Great Father of Wisdom, the Eternal Jehovah. There is conclusive evidence that the Almighty is a builder, and the creation is His edifice, conducted on those perfect rules of Art which Science studies and which Geometry claims as its own. The Grand Master of the Universe had power, through His infinite wisdom, to accomplish at a word, what man, His creatare, can never hope to equal; yet it becomes man himself, a subordinate creator, to imitate his Grand Master, at the most remote distance, too happy to be regarded as a fellow-laborer with his Maker in some great work of moral fitness, of benevolent design.

The sea of eternity was ebbing and flowing with the pulsations of eternal benevolence. Deity was a brooding cloud of love, embracing being and breathing, blessings and blessedness on the multiform orders. of mind that dwelt in the heaven of heavens. As yet, no dial had measured time—no pendulum paced its seconds-no clock recorded its hours. As it was in the beginning, so it was ever. The enunciated NOW covered its boundless expanse of being-enjoyment-action.

Heaven was everywhere, save in the far off chaos, where matter warred with opposite and discordant principles, making jargon that might have been wafted by strong winds on the ear of heaven in some pause of song. The spirit world had long been created; it had no chronology. No era stood at its dawn--no event can parallel with its duration. Time had never swung his scythe over its vales-Death's spectral chariot had never been seen on its sun-bright hills. It was a world of strange and inconceivable being, on which the centuries of earth, after they shall have passed away, will measure no space, nor leave a foot-print.

God-the Jehovah, whose incomprehensible and incommunicable name is expressed in one of the hieroglyphics of Hebrew Masonry, looked upon the ruinous space, planted His compass at the foot of the throne and swept its unmeasured circle farther than thought had power to travel. The periphery lay like a faint line of light on the wasteful sea of matter, and here was laid the plan of the material world.

Are there Art and design in the unbounded fields of the illimitable sky, and among the works of the creation? Ask the astronomer, who will tell you that the orbs are a thousand times larger than our earth, with all its oceans, continents and mountains; and as they thunder through space profound, on wings that almost defy the speed of thought, can be calculated in their course with far more precision than the wheels of a watch. They have, since their creation, kept on their unseen celestial railways, never dashing against each other, to darken half the heavens with the fragments of their ruin! Even the comet, the mail carrier from one system to another, as he drives by torchlight across the abysm of space profound, coming up to each goal with a curve, bending the necks of his fiery coursers in a graceful, elongated sphere-may be calculated in his stages, and his returns precisely foretold.

Is there room for the display of this immense machine? Ask the planets that walk their far-sweeping rounds on one plane, but at awful distances from each other, making their own years as they accomplish the mighty circle around the sun!

Is there proportion in creation? Ask Jupiter, with his moons, or Saturn, with his far-off cloudy skies and his broad girdle of light, if the great central urn of fire be not large enough to warm their hemispheres, too, as they turn toward the unwinking eye of day?

We bring our readers down to the Masonry of our planet, and read the fitness of Almighty design inscribed on every mountain and imbedded in every vale. The central core of fire is wrapped, thousands of miles deep, in successive layers of stratified rocks, up through

which sometimes the molten lava burns its way and congeals in metallic pillars, that seem to chain the surface to the inner crust against which lash the surges of perpetual fire. The strata of rocks are covered with the layers of earths and soils; over these God's own enameling of green-the carpeting for a giant's tread or a fairy's foot, is thrown in beautiful order, bespangled with flowers of strange loveliness and fragrance.

Above, the tall trees of the forest wave; and higher still the mountain thrones are pitched, on which the kings of thunder take their seats when the alarm of the storm is beaten and the thick clouds are mustered for the black tempest.

Above these still a dome of blue, a wondrous beauty-first gazed on by infant eyes-last seen by eyes swimming in death; an elastic canopy that seems to settle low over the valley, or round up like an arch over the tallest hills, into which, as the æronaut penetrates, he sees it rise higher and higher still-the unapproachable barrier that bounds the vision-best image of the heavenly eternity, that hath no beginning. nor yet an end! To this wide canopy the stars are but the gems and the ten thousand meteors of night, but the spangles that are thrown like fire-flies in bewitching profusion on the robe of night. This is the Masonry of God !-Bro. F. G. Tisdall.

INTEMPERANCE AND PROFANITY.

Every true Mason must regret that there are some men claiming to be Masons, and are members of Lodges, who are guilty of the above low, vicious, and unmanly indulgences. What is more disgusting to one whose mind is endued with the true principles of Masonry, than to see a brother indulging in the low, groveling habit of intemperance, thereby degrading his God-given faculties, and debasing the dignity of his profession? When a Mason is known to have been drunk, in public or in private, in daytime or in the night, he should be immediately called before the Lodge, and informed that such conduct will not be tolerated. It is no act of brotherly love or charity to allow him to destroy his reputation, beggar his family, and disgrace the fraternity. If it is his first offence, he may never be guilty of it again; but if he is an old offender, it is as well to lay the ax at the root of the tree at once and expel him. This will be just as well for him, and far better for the fraternity,-for why should we allow a man to be continually disgracing the Order?

The other class of Masons who indulge in profanity, I sometimes think are persons who have lost all confidence in their own truthful